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La Rioja and Ribera del Duero

There’s something about coming into the Rioja region of Spain on the Camino Francés and seeing all of the vineyards. Differing systems of trellising, but everything from vast acreages planted in Tempranillo, to small pockets of vines in areas protected from winds that fly across the region in the spring. The adjoining regions of Navarra and Rioja, to the west of Logroño, makes for an incredible view of vineyards, that slowly turn into wheat fields as you keep walking.

A protected vineyard in Rioja

As I worked my way through Rioja I sampled amazing Crianzas, or wines that have been in oak for at least a year, as opposed to Reservas which have been aged for two years, at least one of which reds to have been in oak, Gran Reservas have been aged for two years in oak, and three in a bottle.to be honest, at the places you are eating and drinking as a “peregrino,” or pilgrim of the Camino, I haven’t seen a lot of Gran Reserva action.

Finally, in Burgos, which lies west of the Rioja region, I started sampling wines from the Ribera del Duero. Ribera del Duero is one of my favorite wine regions of Spain, and lies directly south of Burgos. The wines have some amazing dark cherry aromas, good acidity and medium tannins, with dark fruits and leather on the palate.

Not a bad way to walk across Spain!

Wine and The Way

For many, walking the Camino Francés is a pilgrimage of discovery and reflection, and a reward unto itself. I am walking the Camino for the next 35 days or so to combine two loves, a love of chances for reflection, and my love of wine. As I walk, I will be taking the time to think about things, but also I will be on the lookout for good wine, and opportunities to share those wines with people in the future, on one of my tours.

Seant-Jean Pied-de-Port

The Camino Francés starts in Saint-Jean Pied-de-Port, in the south of France, It is also home to one of the smallest of AOCs of France, Irouleguy (pronounced Ee-Ru-La-Ghee) comes from the Northern Basque Region, and includes the town of Irouléguy and St.-Jean, in its entirety. About 70 percent of the wines are red wines, some 20 or so are whites, and the rest are rosés.

Irouléguy and local cheese and sausage from Basque Country in southern France

I start the Camino tomorrow, but found time to buy a lovely Katttalingorri 2105, organic (biologique) red. Plum and ripe fruit on the nose, and medium tannins, the wine opened up nicely after about an hour. This particular red was a blend of 65 percent Tannat, and 35 percent Cab Franc, which are the two typical varietals used in red wines from this region and Irouléguy. It also paired fantastically with a local Basque sheep cheese and a meat and cheese sausage from the region. One of my favorite things about traveling to these different regions is not only trying the new wines, but finding how intertwined the wines are with local foods. Cheers to northern Basque Country and Southern France, and Buen Camino!!

Wine, Speculation, and the Gift of Not Listening

The Casablanca Region and Kingston Property

When my friend Ellen Brittan, of Brittan Vineyards, talks with my students about business and marketing, she suggests that vineyards and wineries need a story to tell, or they will just be any other winery. Kingston Vineyards, in the Casablanca region of Chile is one of those places that truly has a unique story. Its founder. Carl John Kingston, came to Chile from Michigan in 1906 looking for gold, and when that failed, worked on finding places that were good for copper and then trying to sell the mining rights to those places to mining companies. As a result of one of these failed transactions, he ended up with several thousand acres in the Casablanca region of Chile, which lies between the coastal town of Valparaiso and Santiago, Chile.

The Kingston property was not a vineyard right away, and in fact, the bodega is a relatively recent development. As one staff member said, the family is willing to try new things, and willing to fail – a characteristic of the willingness to speculate that seems present even today with the fifth generation of the Kingston family. Among the most successful ventures was, and is, a dairy, that even now supplies around twenty percent of the milk consumed in Santiago, Chile. In 1998 they planted wine grape vines, and about five years later released their first wines, which were Pinot Noir and Syrah. (Source: https://www.kingstonvineyards.cl/pages/historia).

Harvest crew, just before lunch break

The Kingston varietals were red, which is notable, because of the fact that up until then all of the grapes that had been planted in Casablanca were either table grapes or white wines. To some the degree, the Kingston family had to become winemakers of their grapes, because most people did not believe that it was possible to make good red wines from black grapes. Today, the family makes a few thousand

Kingston wines

cases, and sells the rest to other bodegas in the area for their wine. But they have most definitely proven that the terroir, just a few kilometers from the coast of Chile, supports red wine making, as well as some great whites, including the Sauvignon Blanc that was being harvested when we arrived.

History is littered in both good and bad ways with reasons why people never did things, or reasons why they have always done another. As we drove down the dusty road through the vineyards, the coastal fog began to lift, and showed us the beauty of the Casablanca Valley and the sounds of the harvest echoed through the vineyard – all of which made the wines smell and taste even better. A toast to speculation, even in the form of grapes, and to asking why it something that is not usually done, can and should be.

The new Kingston tasting room

Aranjuez and Tannat

One of the strategies often discussed in the wine industry, when it come to wine varietals, is how to make that transition from large production levels of “ good cheap wine” from

Aranjuez wine making facilities

Chile/Bolivia/Argentina, to customers being willing to pay more for wines perceived as premium wines. This has been the mission for Malbec from Argentina, or Carménère from Chile. As I have traveled around South America, when I tell people I am down here for the wine, the eyebrows always rise when I include Bolivia among the countries I am visiting. In part, it it is because there is little wine production in the first place, but also because there is no identifiable varietal as there is with Argentinian Malbec, Chilean Carménère, or even the Tannat of Uruguay.

Gerardo Aguirre, Jr., one of the family members and associates of Aranjuez.

Single vineyard tannat and award winning Juan Cruz

Bolivia has different forces at work in establishing its viticultural identity. On the one hand, wine has been made for hundreds of years, using local varietals that were planted from seeds of European varietals. This locality is important, and yet there is also the feeling that Bolivia needs to establish a varietal identity. Some would argue for Moscato de Alexandria, which represents around three-quarters of the grapes grown in the country. Bodegas Aranjuez planted Tannat in 1999, and has won gold medals alongside some of the premier Tannat wines of Uruguay. They argue that this should be the signature grape for Bolivia, because it suits the region best.

The tour of Aranjuez is impressive – the growth of the bodega in terms of size and production over the years is equally so. They are focused on expanding along three lines, but focused on the quality of wines. They have established as their foothold, the Tannat of Juan Cruz,

Newer plantings at Aranjuez

which is spoken of with reverence, while at the same time offering blends and single vineyard productions. After being in the Cinti Valley, it was a very different, large scale experience to tour Aranjuez, as they took in their Petit Verdot harvest. More vines are being planted, a new tasting room opened, and tastings being done to cultivate wine tourism.

Planting Gold in the Valle Cinti

The Valle Cinti is largely inhospitable to humans and grapes, unless one or both of them manages to establish a foothold on one of the precious few hectares along the banks of the rivers that flow along the 85 kilometer canyon. It is a beautiful, if stark, valley – a rocky floor with cacti and scrub brush, surrounded on one side with a stunningly red mountain range and on the other with one that is a drab grey-brown. My sense from my visit to Cepa de Oro was that perhaps humans help grapes survive there, because the grapes in turn make the stay a bit more pleasurable.

A tree, supporting a 100-year-old grapevine

The Spaniards, and Jesuits in particular, brought grapes into the Cinti Valley almost four hundred years ago, even though the indigenous presence itself goes back thousands of years, as documented by Riveras Casanovas in 2004. Most of the grapes would have been planted as seeds, and not cuttings, and would be brought down to the Cinti Valley from places further north, such as Potosí and Sucre, and they would require innovative methods to keep the sun and hail off of them. As I walked the vineyards with don Jaime Rivera, from Cepa de Oro, he shows me some of the strategies used – trees with umbrella-like shapes that give shade and deflect the hail. Plantings near rivers along what must be only a few hundred hectares of fertile soil in the 85 kilometer valley to protect against drought in the land that only gets about 3 months of rain a year.

Jaime Rivera Andres, on the left. Image taken from onlime, as he was holding his daughter most of the time!

Jaime Rivera named Cepa de Oro (“cepa” means vine, or the trunk of the grape) when he saw the sun reflecting off of the golden Moscat de Alexandria grapes, from which he would make white wine, and distill Singani, but now his son, Jaime Andres Rivera, is the fourth generation to make wine here. The latter has a particular love for the regional varietal La Vischoqueña that comes from a nearby town, as well as La Misionera or Criolla Negra, both of which are used for red wines. His father has a love for the unusual grapes that are not found elsewhere, or which are very rare, such as a varietal they call Borgoña which I’ve not seen elsewhere, and a black grape with a dark red juice to it called Lagrimas de Cristo (Tears of Christ).

With don Jaime Rivera in the vineyard. Note the flooding from the river.

My visit with them was not the everyday “desgustación, or tasting, because it took place at the huge birthday party thrown for Jaime Andres Rivera’s one-year-old daughter. Bottles were opened in between clowns and cakes and a meal, but they were amazing. A Vischoquena rose, as well as bottles of red Vischoquena and a rare bottle of Borgoña – all amazing and passionately discussed. The future for Cepa de Oro seems to be a focus of these primary local varietals, along with some Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and of course, the pride of the region, some incredible Singani.

An amazing bottle of La Vischoqueña

How Far Would You Go For Wine – Part Deux

Southern Tarija, in the far south of Bolivia

How far and to what heights would you go to find some wines that you’d probably never tried before? I crossed the south range of Bolivia’s Andes at over 3500 meters to the Valle Cinti, from the city of Tarija, in a sub-compact car I rented from the only rental place I could find in Tarija. I arrived in Camargo (elev. 2400M) to visit Bodega Vacaflores, with Marcelo Vacaflores. Marcelo retrieved me from the downtown square, and before I knew it, I was being invited to almuerzo (lunch), and then a bit of a tasting.

The rout north from Tarija to the Cinti Valley

During the desgustación, or tasting, we talk about the varietals in the Cinti Valley. The three most common are Moscatel de Alexandria, a white grape that is used to make a local white wine, but used also for a local liquor called Singani, which dates back several hundred years to the Jesuits. It is made in the style of eau de vie, because it is fermented and distilled, but uses grapes (which eau de vie does not), and is
classified as a brandy, for trade purposes. In this region, the national drink is made by nearly every bodega, along with their wine. A second varietal is La Misionera, often called Negra Criolla, is a vino tinto, or black grape. The last varietal, another black grape, is called La Vischoquena, comes from the Vicchoca region, was developed here, and is only grown in this region. We try some of each, and Marcelo talks about how they don’t filter the Moscato de Alexandria, but then sort of looks at me sheepishly and says, “well, mainly because we’ve never had a filter,” which is as good of a reason as any, I suggest.

We end up out at the bodega just outside of town, with his father who is also named Marcelo. The bodega has been operated for four generations, all small quantities of grapes being fermented from the three varietals mentioned, but add to those a bit of Merlot and some Cabernet Sauvignon. This is a shoestring affair – they buy most of their grapes, and use what containers they have, only recently having purchased their first stainless steel container. Wines are stored in a range of glass containers some of which go back nearly 100 years, from when glass was the best shipping option for liquids of various forms. All of the grapes come from growers who grow them from between 2400 to 2800 meters in elevation (7900 to 9200 ft.), and in very dry conditions, giving them a distinct, lush flavor.

Father and son pressing off Moscatel de Alexandria

The task today was to press off the Moscatel de Alexandría, which means setting up the wood press, pressing it off and carrying it up the hill to the containers in the bodega. The grapes had been fermenting in the lower building usually reserved for distilling Singani. Father and son work together, making repairs to the press as they discover a leak, and then repair a part that broke off. I step in to help when I can, but largely watch as they had me try different wines.

An old style still, for Singani

As they work, I am told about the family’s history of making wine and Singani, and the loss of the grape vines due to a drought, which they are now replanting. Marcelo discusses the desire to maintain the traditions of the varietals they have planted historically, for four generations, while also wanting to produce wines that are recognizable to outsiders.This is a tension I have heard several times – meeting needs of outside markets, while also wanting to introduce people to the local wines in which they take pride, due to a history that dates back generations and hundreds of years.

Now I just need to find people interested in coming this far, and to this elevation to taste wine with me!

Wine, Conversations, and the Battle of the Two Enriques

When I was living in Mexico years ago, there were two historians that were battling over very different versions of Mexico’s history. One, Enrique Krauz, took the position that Mexico’s history was best seen through the notion of “mestizaje,” or the fusion of Spanish blood with Indigenous peoples – a blending of races and civilizations. Another historian, Enrique Florescano, suggested that this made the Conquest seem as if it were a sudden, permanent and total accomplishment, and that it ignored the local and regional resistance to domination that even now, continued to happen. Florescano is what is known as a micro-historian, and he prefers to dig down into the local stories, even in the face of large-scale forces being at work – an approach I have come to admire. I came to call this argument of the macro versus the micro, the Battle of the Two Enriques.

Pedro Quiroga

I found myself thinking of these micro-histories, during my visit to Mendoza -starting with my friend Pedro Quiroga (https://peterwinetours.com), who was driving me around to bodegas. A man born in the United States to parents from Mendoza, who
worked in the mining industry, he is now much happier working in tourism and has seen much of the Mendoza wine industry in its growth period. He is also an incredible source of knowledge and information.

Our visits to bodegas in the Valle del Uco included some of these “large force” vineyards and bodegas; examples of how international investment has come to Argentina. There were other moments though, when you aren’t just doing the tastings, or “desgustaciones” as they are called here, when you get to see the passion and how individuals are passionate about what they do. Tasting with the wine maker, Carlos, at Gimenez Riili led to a great conversation about the battle over the “old way” of winemaking, which emphasizes the winemaker, versus the “new way,” which emphasizes terroir, climate, soil, etc. He finds

Carlos, Winemaker at Gimenez Riili

himself trying find a middle ground, where the winemaker is not devalued in this new system, while acknowledging, what for Argentina, is a new focus on terroir and a sense of place, and in addition to the wines he makes for Gimenez Riili, he shares an amazing Petit Verdot on his own label, to show me the style he is talking about.

Lastly, there was the stop at Bodega El Azul, a boutique winery that goes back over 60 years with local grape and peach production. The name, El Azul, comes from the story of the father, Francisco Hinojosa, having to split up the land among his children, and each of them choosing a card of a different color. With each color, came a plot of land, a tractor, and other supplies, all marked with that color. The son of that daughter, Ezequiel, now runs El Azul, the bodega, a restaurant and a hotel. Next, you find yourself sitting at a table, drinking a typically enjoyable Mendoza Malbec and a lovely Sauvignon Blanc, out in the back of the hotel near the parrilla, talking about the state of wine in Mendoza and in Argentina.

El Azul Malbec

These individual stories of wine growers and wine makers are undoubtedly set in the context of bigger forces. But wine seems to lend itself to the exchanging of these local, micro-histories in a unique way, and seems to embody the conviviality you find in virtually any wine region.

El Azul Grapes with Netting for Hail Protection

What’s New in Mendoza

There has been an incredible amount of foreign investment in Mendoza’s Valle de Uco, about 100 kilometers south of Mendoza, Argentina. It is a recent creation of a wine tourism region out of sand and rock, and a great example of the different forms that vineyards and wine-making can take in the present day. Many would refer to this as the recent impact of globalization, but globalization is actually not a recent phenomenon. For it to happen, it first took a sense of place to release the forces of globalization, and that was in the form of permanent settlements during the Neolithic Period (or New Stone Age), a mere 11,500 years ago, or about 9,500 BCE, give or take.

The rock and sandy soil of Valle del Uco

The Neolithic was important to humans, because it was when we started to domesticate animals and crops, and humans started to trend away from nomadism and into permanent settlements. This was important to grapes because not only could you grow them in a domesticated fashion in one place, it also took that same permanent location in which to ferment them – hard to do when you are nomadic and moving a lot. An additional bonus was that when you were permanently settled, you were much easier to find – so when you had surpluses (which you could now store more easily) you could also trade what you had. Grapes and wine benefitted from all of those conditions.

Harvest 2019 in Valle del Uco

Mendoza shows these waves of “globalization,” as they relate to wine. On the one hand you have early permanent indigenous settlements fermenting grains in regions of Mendoza, or in proximity to it. You then have the introductions grapes during the colonial period, both as a part of conquest and for religious regions – the latter for communion wine, about 450 years ago. Later, a strong influence of immigrants from wine producing countries, especially Italy and Spain, from the mid 1800s to the early 1900s. And now, given the economy you are seeing a lot of investment from abroad.

The Vines, in the Valle de Uco, as well as surrounding vineyards, are indicative of the latest form of globalization. The success of the marketing of Argentina’s Malbec, and cheap land, has attracted foreign investors. The Vines, attracts investors who can buy a certain amount of hectares from which to make their wines, and the services provided range from the entire vineyard to bottle process, to owners who establish bodegas who staff it for themselves. Most of the region’s vineyards, The Vines and other local vineyards, are young – all planted in the last 15 years. Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Tempranillo, and some whites in the form of Sémillon, as well as some Chardonnay and Torrontés. What cannot be grown there are often brought in from other areas of Mendoza for blending.

Bodega Solo Contigo, in The Vines

Many of the wines are excellent, and production levels range from 50 thousand liters to 7 million (or probably more), depending on the bodega, the owners and the wine-making philosophy. It is a palate-bending region in which to taste, based on wines made from young vines, in a new and interesting region. And the side conversations on whether or not this contemporary from of globalization is good, bad, or even matters, is almost as varied as the wine itself.

Tasting at Bodega Solo Contigo

Wines from Bodega Salentein

Knights of Spumante

It’s been particularly enjoyable to get to know some of Argentina’s Spumante. While I had some in Patagonia, some of the best is being made in the Mendoza region, and Cruzat has been on of my favorites. We arrived at Cruzat just as they were harvesting some of their first Chardonnay and Pinot noir grapes, and we were greeted with the smell of fermenting grapes and baked bread smell that one hopes to find in a sparkling wine-making facility.

As a Latin Americanist, I am fascinated by the status of South American wines being “new world” wines, putting them in the same category as Oregon and Washington wines. The latter are truly new, in the sense of the last 50-60 years of modern wine production, while South American wines easily go back to 450 years of production. Cruzat’s emblem is even a family emblem that goes back to the Knights Templar.

Cruzat is solely a Spumante winery, as sparkling and still wines must be made at separate facility, as sugar is not allowed in the latter, by regulation. Because of this, they also do custom crushes for other brands who produce still wines at their own facilities. The Extra Brut was amazing, the Nature was also lovely, and while I tend not to like the sweeter varieties, those at the table who did, seemed to enjoy the Demi-sec as well. Cruzat uses the Méthode Champenoise for production, and plays around a lot with blends, but only of Pinot noir and Chardonnay, as Pinot Meunière is tough to grow here. They play around with some interesting straight varietal productions of Chardonnay and a Pinot noir, as well.

A side note: As someone who teaches about wine, and knows just enough about wine to get myself in trouble, it is sometimes painful to sit through someone who is using old theories on how to taste wine. I don’t have anything to say about how to make sparkling, but we spent a fair amount of time talking about the sweet vs. acid tasting regions of the tongue, which most of science now agrees don’t really exist. But, I know better than to show up a wine tour guide, and also remember the blank looks I’ve gotten, when I have not kept my mouth shut. So despite the machinations we went through in getting the Doux past our “sweet taste-buds” on the tip of our tongue, as we then imagine how much sweeter it tastes after we allow it to do so; the Spumante was excellent.